The Young Turks - Part 1: TYT's 2020 Turks & Jerks

Episode Date: December 31, 2020

Part 1: Turks & Jerks: It's that time of year, when the TYT Supreme Court weighs in on the past year's heroes and goats, stars and flameouts, hunks and lunks - or as we call them, Turks & Jerks. Yes, 2020 has been a big steaming pile, but we'll still find some bright lights who shone, while also identifying the year's biggest stinkers.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited.

Sorry. Smurfs. Only theaters July 18th. Welcome everyone to the 2020 edition of our annual Turks and Jerks Celebration. I'm John Adirola, joined by Jank Uger and J.R. Jackson. Although we'll have some other awesome guests we're going to be joining us along the way. Jank, I definitely want to talk a little bit about the history of Turks and Jerks, but for people who might be watching this for the first time, this is effectively like in the political context, our lighter take on the news.

on the news. We get to talk about the worst people and eventually the best people and make a little bit of a game out of it. And this year, we've really tried to involve the audience as much as possible. We had rounds of voting on all of these different potential jerks and Turks. And so we're gonna be going through some of those brackets. But really fast, before we get into all of that, how did you originally come about the idea of doing this and how long has it been going on? So that's an excellent question for how long it's been going on. I don't remember. We'll have to look that up, but it's been a long time. And I think that Ben and I came up with it when we were talking about, it must have just come

out organically when we were talking about, hey, we should probably, like, this is totally made up. So let me preface it that way. Wouldn't it be great if Fox News started a segment that way? This is totally made up. fraud in Georgia, it's unacceptable. Be honest. Yeah.

So my non-recollection but assumption based on how the show used to go back in the day is that Ben probably said at some point that like that guy's amazing, he should be like Turk of the year. And then we're like, because as soon as you think of Turk of the year, you immediately think of jerk of the year. So to this day, Ben is still furious that we don't spell jerk of the year, J URK. He's like, what's the point of the segment if you're not doing it with a U? Well, I mean, alternatively, it could be T-E-R-K, but one of those two things definitely should have been done. Well, there was a breakdown in the system. Yeah, the only problem with that is as usual, with anything with spelling and trying to make it like this cool, this little snazzy change and turn of phrase is people undoubtedly will say, you guys miss.

Jerk. You guys don't know how to spell. Do you know jerk is not spelled with the, like it's 35%, probably 45% of people would say that in all stages. I get the people that would joke about it, but there's definitely a significant portion of people that would say, these guys don't even know how to spell jerk. JR, higher, higher. And by the way, and then what happens is, well, first of all, no one knows jokes being taken out of context online better than I do. I'll just be honest about that. So second of all, people then spread the misinformation.

Like I did a sarcastic tweet that then bounced around the world. And now everybody's convinced that I'm best friends with near a tandem and can't wait for the establishment Democrats to cut taxes on the rich. Okay, like you know, don't do it. Jenk, it occurs to me, I think I know the tweet you're talking about. And that was, it was very dry. It was very dry sarcasm. Like I at first was like, huh, look at Jank being like diplomatic, oddly in this case.

That confused even me actually. Yeah, so if we spell the jerks with a you, oh, they don't even know it's, they call us them, they don't even know a spell. Yeah, well, we didn't get the spelling right. So we've only left ourselves open to probably 50 comments that are just, yeah, well, you guys are the young jerks. Oh yeah, of course. My favorites are people who think that these are, these things are a novel.

I guess you guys aren't the young Turks, you're the young jerks. Right. And then, uh, Jank Yugar, or is it Chunk Yogurt? What I imagine is, and what I get it, they don't know it, but I love it every time they do it. Because I picture them taking a victory lap around their house or their farm. Like around the coffee tail, I call them chook yogurt. Nobody's ever thought of that before. By the way, this is going to be a night of a few surprises,

and it looks like we have our first surprise. You know who's joining us right now? Ida Rodriguez is here. How's it going, Ida? Yay! Okay. Are we talking about marshmallow mits yet? No, we're going to get to him.

Don't worry. Sorry. Okay, so the first hours apparently jerks of the year as we're talking about Mitch McConnell. We're definitely in the jerk category, that's for sure. So guys, we had you guys vote this year, and so your votes are you decided Turk and jerk of the year. And this is our reveal of it. And have we done it that way every year?

No, we've changed the system like seven times, I can't even keep track. So we broke them out into brackets. We had five brackets of jerks and five brackets of Turks, and they were both sides were difficult. And the next hour we're gonna talk about the Turks of the year. But jerks of the year was like, it's a murderer's row of jerks. It's impossible to make these decisions. Literally, right? And yeah, in this case, unfortunately, literally. Like here, John, if you don't mind, let's start in bracket number three, jerks number three, okay? So I'll read you guys the people that were in that bracket. And then John will reveal who won that bracket to make it into the finalists

of jerks. Okay. So first choice there was the Trump family. Oh, come on, they got to win, right? I mean, they're the, Don Jr. Eric Ivanga, they're the Kirster, they're the worst, okay? The Trump family. Number two was anti-maskers. Oh, for Christ's sake. Okay, they're despicable and cause people their lives. Number three is Lindsay Graham. This is impossible. This is impossible, right? They're all like a hundred out of a hundred on jerks. And number four was Gislayne Mask Maxwell. So I wish her well. Like the one who led a child predator ring is like the is not nearly, is definitely not the favorite. Okay, so that's how despicable these folks are in the jerks category.

Well, John, also, John, make sure you make sure people know that you're joking, because if you tweet that, people might take it seriously. Exactly. Sarcasm doesn't play well. So in each of these categories, we do have a winner, but can we, let's talk about who we might have gone for, maybe, a little bit, because we got some good names there. Look, I have to say, I think that people approach like who should be the Turk and who should be the jerk in different ways. And we we sort of have a version of this on TDR called the Garbage Person of the Week. And it's never like just the worst person, like someone who killed a bunch of people. Like that, that's one way to categorize it. But then I think for each of us, we have, there's something out there that a person can be or embody. that just like is the exact inverse of what we want in the world or what we see as ourselves.

And that is generally what I go for when choosing like a jerk. So when I see things like the Trump family, I think, you know, they're awful and everything. Some members more than others, maybe in a previous year. But for 2020, I think the caliber of bad was so high that like I can't get all that worked up about like Eric Trump this year. There's so much worse stuff going on, you know? Yeah, well, I hear you. Tiffany didn't make the list, but, uh, sorry, partly because they forgot she's part of the family.

That's right. So I look at it as symbolic because they're all horrible in different ways. And if you, John's right, if you just did it on the worst criminals, of course you picked Maxwell, right? And every year you'd pick like bin Laden or Jeffrey Dahmer, et cetera, and then it becomes uninteresting, right? Yeah. And so I look at it as who's most symbolic of the jerks in that category?

And honestly, I would have voted for Lindsey Graham, because he epitomizes sniveling, lying, disgusting politicians, and he proved that in spades this year. I mean, he crawled so far up Donald Trump's orifices, as the late Oro Roberts used to say. That, I mean, if we were going to give him the award, we'd have to go into uncharted, unpleasant territory. Do you think, is there going to be sort of an attempt to rebrand Lindsey Graham? Is he going to try to pretend that he's going to be like the guy who's going to work with Biden or whatever? Yes. Are you kidding me?

It happened today. What happened today? What happened today? Saying that Joe Biden, he talked to Joe Biden for 10 minutes and Joe Biden was super pleasant. And so we're, and Lindsey Graham hasn't even acknowledged as Joe Biden won yet. And so we're now rehabilitating Lindsey Graham. Great. It's disgusting.

So I want no part of it if you're the Democratic Party or you're the media, you know, rehabilitating guys like that is means that you're doing political correct. and lying on purpose to help terrible disgusting politicians. Yeah, go ahead, Ida. No, I was just going to say, yeah, there's going to be some rebranding. Lindsay Graham will be the new spokesman for the Big Mac. And Mitch McConnell will be the Big Mac. The fact that we sit here and have conversations where we grant these people the grace

to rebrand themselves, especially someone like Lindsey Graham, who we've watched flip-flop, Donald Trump must have one hell of a vault with dirt on all of these people because you can't possibly be a human being and this gross. As a woman and being here, I'm not, I wouldn't be able to to go get off of this without saying that any woman who's participated in the trafficking of the bodies of other women is by far one of the most despicable people on the planet and to get away with it in a way that people even extend social grace to her because she's elite and I just think it's disgusting and she's hands down. But I also want people to remember that Mitch McConnell and his marshmallow looking self is behind a lot of the horrible

acts and things that happen that trickled down to affect a lot of people. And we don't realize how dangerous he is because we're so busy chasing Donald Trump's ridiculousness. But Mitch McConnell is behind the acts that really affect the everyday man. And he is by far the most egregious, disgusting and despicable person. And that act today where people are actually celebrating him for doing what he's supposed to be doing and should have been doing a long time ago is just a great indicator of how low the bar is right now. I'm not in. Yeah, before we go to Jay honest thoughts in this bracket, I just wanted to double down on

one thing that I was saying. Because Maxwell's on the list, not just because she's a terrible criminal, but because of the political implications too. Because a lot of the politicians used to know her and party with her. So there's not a lot of, like the Q&ONs obsessed with child molesters. And she is the most famous child molester in the country. It used to be Jeffrey Epstein, but his partner in crime was Maxwell. And Ida's right, she not only did that, but she tricked, like she tricked and trafficked

other women and she did it for money and fame and status. And it's absolutely disgusting. And of course, her biggest defender, Donald Trump, on several occasions, he said, I wish her well. They said, oh, they caught her. She's in prison. And he's like, oh, I wish her well. You wish the person that is known as a child molester the most in the country well. And QAnon is on his side. It makes no sense. Which really fast is like an indictment of him. But it's also an indictment of like, okay, if you're going to be a part of this QNon thing and you're going to be all crazy and believe the crazy stuff, shouldn't you at least have to actually be mad at the pedophiles and the people who sexualized kids? No. Like some consistency, no? And by the way, the Q&N people aren't on the list of the jerks,

but I feel like they really should be this year. Well, the main characteristic I think that goes into, and I think it's talking about even with Gislin Maxwell is there's the power dynamic. Who in each of these categories that were going to name, at least our opinion for the jerk? It's what kind of power they wield, because all of them are horrible people and they kind of work in coordination with each other, like you were saying. So political leaders in helping Lynn Maxwell get off and also try to, and then previously, when Epstein got off. The whole idea is they can't get there without the help. Donald Trump couldn't have done the horrible things he's done and told everybody's going to do without help

from the Republican Party. Who was already there before he got there? That he's their creation. So of course they're going to help him. So I feel like in this category, yeah, Gulenne Maxwell's one of the worst people ever. But if there wasn't enough people assisting the worst person ever, they couldn't have gotten there. So the power that someone wields in this situation, I mean, you know, you got your Lindsey Graham's. Lindsay Graham was assistant. Trump, you know, but then who assisted Lindsey Graham to get where he was? Lindsay Graham is a senator, and he kind of leeches on to someone else. He's, he's a leech. That's why he still attached half of his, uh, suction are still attached to Donald Trump. And he's released half of them,

and he's starting to suction onto Joe Biden. So it's just who he is. It's what he is. It's what we've always known him to be. And he actually admitted himself when he was, when he was speaking about John McCain in the past. So I think that's why it lessens it for me on Lindsey Graham, and I naturally just went towards the Trump family because it's a part of the family structure of one of the most powerful families for the last four years, at least, in the country, and they've helped the propaganda for pushing him. They've helped with all the things they've done. And we talked about the charity organizations. And then when he says he wasn't doing anything with his businesses, his family's still running them. And it's still, of course, communicating with him

in some kind of way to let him know what's going on. It's, and right in front of us, this is not hidden. You know, this was said from the very beginning. He said, well, yeah, I know, the proof that I'm not going do anything as far as having any conflicts of interest is because I promise. Yeah. That's what we went with. And then we just moved on because who's going to stop him is what the final answer was. So John, you want the winner? Hold on. This is, so we did not plan this out, but me, JR, and I all had three different answers in this bracket to show you how tough this is. Did you say who you would have voted for? I didn't yet. And you know why? because I'm saving it for the announce, but there's will be several types of winners.

We're gonna have an overall winner, a Turk of the Year and a jerk of the year based on your votes. We've got winners inside of each of these brackets, and along the way, maybe we can each reveal ours. The winner in this category and the the jerk who would probably be my jerk of the year, it's the anti-maskers. I think that I would have chosen them overall, Because it's not only substantively, the behavior of all these people ended up killing and maiming thousands and countless thousands of additional people who didn't need to die, but the fact, like it really, like I have lost a lot of respect for humanity and for Americans specifically every year of my life, but more this year than the rest combined that we could

fail so epically in the face of this struggle and so selfishly and so selfishly and so pathetically to not just say, I'm not going to do this stuff because it's too hard and I can't do it. That would be pathetic enough. But for people to turn their selfishness into their entire political identity and to get in people's face so, so arrogant and enthusiastic about how anti-science they are and how little they care whether they hurt themselves, which is fine, that's their right. But more importantly, risk killing others. I think the anti-maskers were the worst part of this year. Worse in some ways even than the pandemic itself, because the pandemic was it was going to be there. But it didn't have to be that bad. We made it bad. The worst

aspects of ourselves. I think the anti-maskers, that is the worst example of what humanity can be when things get tough. And they won this bracket. Yeah. So every time one of you talked, I got convinced of your position. So when Ida said, what she said, I was like, oh, she's definitely right. It should have, I should have voted for Maxwell. Okay, and then when John made his point, I was like, well, arguably affected even more people, right? And it is, and I keep going back to the symbolism. And it's symbolic of our rejection of knowledge, science, and it's so iconic. Because guys like that are in the proud boys, they say that they're Western chauvinists, that they celebrate Western civilization. No, they don't.

That's the exact opposite of Western civilization that supposedly the cornerstone of Western civilization is science and knowledge and enlightenment. And they hate it. That's why they were anti-maskers in the first place. And so yeah, they got, and it isn't it just about them. They got a lot of people killed. It really did. And it's symbolic of their ignorance and purposeful ignorance. So at the end, it's just to clarify, as John said, you guys voted the winner. And in this bracket, it was anti-maskers. And that is our number five jerk of the year. John sheeted, he just went with what the crowd with, because he's trying to win the crowd.

It's okay, John. I see three. That's not number one, it's number five. So we-maskers won. Is that what you're saying that? Anti-maskers won the first round. Believe it or not, there's four other brackets of horrific people. Yeah, and to be clear, we're going upward in total participation. So this is the fifth worst jerk of the year. Each of the brackets is going to be even worse from here on now. So the number one bracket is the number one, the one of that is the number one jerk. Yes. Just to fully explain it. Yep. Yeah. What I wanted to say about the anti-maskers though is that we, we, we, yes, it's terrible, but we have to be honest about the, the role that the media played in this, that the government played in this, our education system. You're dealing with a bunch of people who've been manipulative.

manipulated by Donald Trump. It created this mass hysteria, this cult, this cult reality that we've been dealing with. And yes, I think that they're horrible and it's selfish. But I just think that we got to hold like those powers accountable because they're the one that kept continuously sprinkling the misinformation to these people. You know, Donald Trump told us he had coronavirus and then tried to John Wayne it. Like I got over it. Meanwhile, a bunch of these poor people are dying. of coronavirus who don't have access to the medication and the resource that he did. And so I'm not trying to be like to empathize, but I do think that a lot of ignorance has been fed in this country. And we are idiocry right now. We're that movie and a lot of these people don't even know better. Yeah. So I've got to add a last thing to that and then tell you about I found out when we started Turk of the year. And it's related to this, so it works out nicely. So you know, the Western so-called Western civilization that I was referring to, I realized,

as you guys were talking, the other pillar of that is democracy. That's what also came out of enlightenment, et cetera. And what happened at the very end of the Trump era? They also came out against democracy. They rejected every part of what we know as Western civilization. Now, ironically, the first Turk of the year, I know was Malala Yusuf Zai. And why did we give her the Turk of the year? So it must have been either 2012 when she was shot or 2013 when she got better and started

a movement, okay? So it's either seven or eight years old now. So Malala, for those of you who don't remember, was a young Pakistani girl who stood up for girls going to school, even though she was just 12 years old. Taliban and Pakistan came and shot her in the head. She recovered and instead of being bowed, she was unbowed and came out and let a movement to educate young girls in Pakistan and all across the world. Every time I think of that story, I think I don't know that there's anyone I admire more.

That is the epitome to me of courage and morality and heading in the right direction. Now, we call it Western civilization, but there she is a Muslim girl in Pakistan fighting for equal rights for women and fighting for education. I take her a thousand times more. My idea of America, not what it actually did, but the theoretical ideal of America, no one represents it better than Malala, and she represents it a billion times better than people like the anti-maskers. Yeah. You wanna move into the second bracket? Yes. You know which one, right? Oh yeah, sorry, here we go. Second bracket, every one of these is unbelievable. And so let's go to this. that it was, in this bracket, we had the contestants of Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson,

and Laura Ingraham. Okay, Janine Piro and Maria Bartaroma are furious that they didn't make those. Well, Ida, you wanted some accountability for the media. We got a good chunk of the media there for you. All right, so Ida, let's start with you. Out of those four horsemen of the Fox News Apocalypse, who do you pick is the winner in that bracket? As horrible as I think Laura Ingram is and shameless. I think Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are the people that have that move people the most. So I got to hold them the most accountable because the people who follow Tucker Carlson, who I remember at at a Politicon who likened immigration to a dinner party at his

house and how he did not want anyone who he did not invite personally to be able to come to one of his great dinner parties. And that is how that is what he compared immigration to. I think he's I think he's horrible. I think they are all the clown fest over there, but an exception of a few people and they're complicit in the clown fest because they hang out. But I just, I would say Tucker. Yeah, J.R. What do you think? Yeah, well, I'm glad you're dancing between those two because I won with the other, Sean Hannity. Again, it's, I'm gonna try and use this, this, I guess, decision factor based on each of these brackets. Sean Hannity, I think, has the most influence towards this president.

He's the one who speakers to them all the time and says, I consult with the president. I tell him what he should do, because President Trump is a dummy. So he needs a little bit of help from people who are better at crafting. a message that will convince enough people, the things that I'm doing is actually that are helping. By the way, MAGA, they don't actually like you. They use you. So he's like, I know a good way. I've been doing this for years. I've been doing this for decades. I know how to convince idiots. Then what you're doing is not screwing them over, but actually helping them out. I got you back. And so, and also he's, obviously, he and Tucker are the two most popular

biggest names on it. And there's a weakness with Lou Dobbs that I feel like. Lou Dobbs has this, It's like he's groveling every day, but he has this anger tone as if he's telling him something, Mr. President, you know, you need to do, but really he's just kissing and bowing is what he's doing. So there's a weakness of Lou Dobbs that I feel like, yeah, he still carries some weight, but Sean Hattie had this, had the ear of the president that was doing all this. Okay, you guys got to stop it. You're making me change by vote every time you guys talk. Is Lou Dobbs even alive, though? Has this body felt like that?

He looks like a puppet. Go ahead, Jank. I'm sorry. John, you know this, but what do they call him? Necromasters? A necromancer is someone who knows the power to reanimate the dead. They're working overtime with Lou Dobbs. And they did a good job, they didn't nail some parts.

The hair is not convincing, but they got some of it right. I see, so he's not a necromancer, a necromancer created him. Probably. Or the latest incarnation of him. I got you. Well, I'm going to stick with what my original votes were. So I voted for Lou Dobbs because he's the epitome, epitome of the bootlicker. I mean, he is so over the top, so outrageous that like he, I think he makes Sean Hannity blush. So I mean, I think he makes, I'm not kidding, I think he, the people who's in propaganda in North Korea, look at him and go, man, we got to up our game. So on the other hand, I'd have made a terrific point. And I think, you know, I'm trying to decide

whether the people on the other side that are smart, whether I hate them more or less, I think I got to land on more, but I don't quite feel it in my bones yet. Because the only guy on the list that's smart is Tucker. And so he's more purposeful about it. It's, Hannity is actually an idiot. I say that like it's breaking news. Like if you listen to him on the radio, he cannot connect one thought to another. TV's good for him because he jumps from one topic to another,

there's short segments, and he doesn't have to connect thoughts to one another. He has no logic at all. And so then JR kind of swung me on hand. Kennedy because he is both influential, as I'd have pointed out, and has the ear of the president the most and probably does the most propaganda. But originally I voted for Dobbs. All right, how about you, John? For me, I actually, of all of the brackets, I think I found this one to be the easiest, maybe tied with the second bracket. But for me, Lou Dobbs is a caricature of a caricature. Like, I don't think he, I don't know how many years you'd have to go back to

find a person he persuaded to change their mind on something. Like, there's a handful of 95-year-old hard right-wingers who watch him. I don't think that there's any chance that they were going to be swayed by anything else. He's just, he's like, I compared him a couple weeks ago to the voice of London for V from Vendetta, but like doing like kind of like a simpy sort of version of him. So I'm not, I don't really care about him. Laura Ingram, there's a case to be made. She apparently was really influential on the whole hydroxychloroquine thing, but she is the least influential of all of those four. For me, Sean Hannity is, again, he's a dummy. I get what JR is saying is that he has the ear of Trump more. That's possibly swaying me. But for me,

it's got to be Tucker Carlson. And not just for the reasons that I would consider him the biggest jerk any year out of these four. But in particular, he supposedly was a little bit reasonable about the pandemic early on, and then he got a lot of bunch of credit for it compared to Sean Hannity. And then a week and a half went by. And he has spent the entire time trying to get people to not care about this thing. I believe that all of them are responsible for a great many deaths, but Tucker Carlson more than any other. And Tucker Carlson is at least in theory smarter than the rest of them. And so I think he has more culpability. Like he knew more what he was doing when he was advising his fans to get themselves sick, to get their family sick,

and to kill them. So for me, I think he's the clear jerk out of that category. And who won, John? Well, coincidentally, actually, Stucker Carlson had that girl. I swear I would have said it anyway. I see a pattern here, John. Number two, uh, number four, Laura Ingram is high stepping out of this round. No one shows her, not even the fans. She's just not interesting enough. LeBron was the only one who voted for her. That's a good point. Okay, do we want to take our first break and then come back and do the final three brackets for the jerks? Yeah, absolutely. I just gotta say because Ida makes this great points.

She famously said shut up and dribble about LeBron. And then the minute it appeared that Drew Brees was a conservative. She's like, we gotta listen to the athletes. The athletes know what they're saying. She's unreal. They're all unbelievable liar. Unbelievable liars and hypocrite. Anyways, all right, yes, let's take a quick break.

When we come back, there's three another brackets. And we haven't gotten to the actual top jerk of the year yet. So it's a murderer's row, like we said. We'll be, so stay right here. In fact, like and share the stream if you're watching on YouTube and Facebook. All right, we'll see you in a second. Welcome back everyone to our Turks and Jerks of the Year. We are moving into an even jerkier territory than we were before. We've gone through two of the brackets, now we're gonna give

you our numbers three through one jerks. Who do we have next? All right, in this bracket, another killer set of folks, sometimes literally. So number one choice was Trump voters. Number two choice was proud boys. Number three choice was Karen. And number four was Amy Coney Barrett. They are trained. So, there's a lot of votes. Oh, they're all the same person. It's like a big Venn diagram, a fourth circle.

Yeah, except proud boys, presumably. But yes, Karen's Amy Coney Barron and Trump voters. You're right. That is a pretty concentric circle, Ida. So as usual, that apparently is tradition. Ida, let's start with you. That's a hard one because, oh my God, because the Cairns are the Trump voters and the handmaiden, they all connected. I would say the Prow Boys, because the Prow Boys came under the banner of being, we knew what they were from the beginning.

I don't respect white supremacists who say they're not white supremacists. I don't rock with people like that. They are, they get the least respect. And the funny part was as a Latina, when they told that they, they kicked the Latin dude out. And they were like, we told you we shouldn't have let him in. He's not one of us. So I said they are definitely not just the jerks of the year, but the clowns of the year. They can't even get there. Their PR person is trash. Yeah, I like the idea of like these clowns who do like fake gang initiations and talk about fruit loops and rice Krispies and who think that they're tough, the idea that they would have a PR person. And I think they're, they probably have the same PR person as JR. Who's the congressman who released that video you were tweeting about? The action video. Oh, that was a cringe shot. Yeah, both of them. have like a PR person who thinks they know how to make someone look cool. They don't really have

it. Yeah. So Jayr, what do you think? Lou Dobbs is their PR person. Sorry. No, honestly, and Jake gave the my biggest reason because it was both funny and pathetic at the same time, but also I'm agreeing with Ida on this one is the proud boys. Well, Well, they're the newest terrorist organization in America. So, and backed by the President of the United States openly and explicitly. So I mean, they had some name recognition, you know, they had a couple points on the map. But you know, once President Trump puts them on from a presidential debate and then they're more emboldened to carry out the violence and activities that they've begun carrying out,

this is the last phase of what he's hoping for. And he needs his foot soldiers. You know, we always talk about brown shirts and everything from the past and the things that they did. But these foot soldiers are now in the streets trying to carry out their objective. They have nothing else to do. And we had that one particular proud boy, remember he was interviewed by someone in the streets who said, yeah, I don't know, man, I'm just kind of, there's no other hope for me. I'm just kind of dumb. I'm 40 years old. I have nothing else I can do with my life. This is just what I do. You guys remember that? Did you guys see that? No, I was a proud boy

who said, I'm just a dummy. And there's nothing else I can really do. And the lady was like, don't sell yourself short. And she was sympathizing with him. And I was like, well, listen, man, And these are the folks who then will go out and rather than talking someone being honest with themselves. And instead of fixing themselves, they think go and start attacking or posting about how they're going to go meet up in this next place. And then once you crowd them all together, there's this energy of a bunch of wild thugs trying to harm folks. And now look, and then the fake gang initiation just put me over the top. Because as much as they talk trash about what they think gangs are and who is involved in them, they hope more than anything to be just like that. Yeah.

Yeah. But they have no, yeah. Look, there's a thousand things I can say about the proud boys. And the most important one is that they're the brown shirts. And if Trump had won, they would terrorize the streets in a way we've never seen in America. And so it's not that they're not going to do it into Biden years either, but they don't have the power of the White House behind them anymore. And that makes a giant difference.

But I voted for the broader category, Trump voters, because it, I actually think logically it's inescapable. Remember that Trump is a con man, and a con man knows how to read a room. And if the Trump voters had wanted to be good to immigrants or good to others or good to women, and I can go on and on, then that's what Trump would have given them. But he sensed, no, these people are despicable, and they want me to be as dirty, rotten, racist, bigoted, sexist as I could possibly be. And so he gave him what they wanted. So it's Trump voters. You just changed my mind.

That is an excellent point, because he did not convert 74 million minds. That's actually, that's actually, that's facts. Yeah, he didn't convert them, he read them. Yeah, I always get frustrated when Jake is right. I'm gonna say for me, for me, like the Trump voter is sure, but not this year. I think like obviously they're just as bad as they were, but in terms of like getting in your face, headline news, that sort of thing out of this group, I, my heart kind of wants to say that. the Cairns, like, because again, it's that, like, it's not like the Trump voters aren't emblematic of all sorts of bad human behavior, and the proud boys obviously are even more laughable,

maybe. But the Cairns just, their unwillingness to let people live their lives, it just, I found that to be so frustrating. And obviously, sort of the Cairns began in this, this area of like not allowing black people to just live. But I feel like it's gone so much broader than that. I feel like there's a lot of crossover with the anti-maskers actually. It's just this busy body feeling like you are the most important thing in the universe. I find it so frustrating. So I'm gonna say the Karen's out of that bracket. Yeah, John, what you're pinpointing there is something that drives all of us crazy, which is that sense of entitlement, unearned entitlement, right? I am, you know, whatever they think they are, white, et cetera, and you are not. So I belong here

and you don't. I own this place. And it's just not true. And that's why it's infuriating. So who won in this category? So this one actually, the people did not side with me. They actually went with a couple of you. It is the Trump voters, the winner of the bracket and the number three jerk of the year. That covers all of them, though. It's pretty much all of them. Yeah. There's a little bit of crossover with the anti-maskers too, I'm gonna guess. Yeah, yeah. So in these brackets are so funny because like Amy Coney Barrett is a religious fundamentalist that's on the Supreme Court, that is against choice, that's against, that's in favor of Citizens United. I mean, just horrible, horrible. And she's an easy force.

No one even mentioned her as a potential to win that bracket. So now let's move the next bracket, which is another kind of easier bracket, because leading that bracket is Trump and then COVID-19. Well, maybe it's not easy. What's worse? Trump's COVID-19. The Lincoln Project and Fox News. So I'm not as nearly as harsh on Lincoln Project as you all are. So I'll tell you that I'm not voting for that. Certainly in a category with Trump and COVID and Fox, but the rest are hard. So Ida, that's a tough one because we have to pick between two viruses, right? The Trump virus and COVID doesn't know that it's COVID, but Trump knows that it's Trump. And COVID wouldn't be as horrible to us as it's been had it not been for Trump.

So I would have to say that Donald Trump and his, okay, yeah, Donald Trump. I feel like you're bordering on a swear there. I was going to say I'm really curious. Whenever I see Ida hesitating, I really want to hear what she wanted. No, I did not realize that. I was angry. I'm so angry because what we talk about, you made such a good point about these voters, because we've demonized Donald Trump so much and given him that much power to think that he's brilliant enough to convert the thinking of

that many people. And in reality, all he did was unveil them to us. He just gave them what they wanted and they showed up tenfold. And so when we think about how, you know, he's horrible. He is horrible. His family is horrible. They're the Lannisters. They are trash. And yet and still, you know, he's still the dumbest dude in the room. The dumbest dude in the room. And he got 74 million people marching behind him like the separate children, and I am in all of this. I am in complete all of this. So that's what I wanted to say. My soul hurts, just thinking about the fact that we have people in our faces who smile at us every day and secretly march behind the big dummy that is Donald Trump. And that is the reality of being an American right now. Yeah. Wow.

Chair, second straight category. I'm agreeing with Ida because, I mean, it's easy to say Donald Trump, but there's a thought behind it for me on this. Everyone knows how much a piece of garbage he is, as you just pointed out. He's had four years at this. And maybe some people said, remember before he won? He said, what do you have to lose? Give me a chance. That whole pitch, the Peter Griffin pitch. It was, what do you have to lose? It was, come on, come on. That was the Peter Griffin pitch. And that's, that was that was his final pitch in 2016. So he won off of that in the racism. And so you have four years and you, and you get into the office and maybe you get wide-eyed. I think every president steps in office, gets briefed and then gets wide-eyed. If they don't, they're not human, because there's going to be things you're going to learn about and see that the people, everyone else isn't privy to that's going to make you go, this is serious. So he had that opportunity. He had the opportunity of some experts trying to tell him the right way to go about things. He had opportunity of other, even Republicans that he should be listening to telling him, hey, this is the way he should go about things.

He had Americans tell him, hey, we're dying. You got COVID-19 running rampant. He had so many chances to finally just say one thing. You know what? I was maybe wrong about that. I'm gonna rethink that. It's a very simple thing to do. It doesn't require any intelligence.

It doesn't require any kind of postgraduate degrees. You don't need to know anything. to then look at someone else that knows more than you, which all of us knows someone that knows more than us. And after they tell us, hey, you know, that's, the reality is this. And you can go, man, I was wrong. You know, I'm a reverse course on that. It doesn't require anything else except for humanity. And that's the one thing he just doesn't have. In fact, he doubles down when someone tells him, hey, you know what? You went about that the wrong way. He can't do it. He can't do it. And he had many opportunities do it. And what John always says

is he could have won re-election by doing it once. Yeah, just that far was so low. It's solely true. So look, I think this is old school commercial BASF, and it was something like, we don't make the, and they would list all these things, the tires, we make them better, we don't make the tapes, we make them better. And that's how I feel about Donald Trump and COVID-19. He didn't make COVID-19, he made it worse. So by definition, Trump beats COVID because of that. Because COVID was also in New Zealand and Taiwan, and it barely killed anyone there.

Because they had capable, smart leaders and empathetic leaders who cared, who cared about the lives of other human beings. And just Trump doesn't. I mean, he mainly, if you remember the main reason he didn't want to wear a mask and why the anti-masker thing began, Nothing to do with freedom or anything full of it. He didn't like the way he looked at a mask. He thought he looked weak like a girl. He's the worst, he's the worst. And so Fox News would normally be number one because they're the ones who poisoned the

well in the first place. But Trump miraculously out Fox News, Fox News this year. And now Fox News is considered weak sauce. And Donald Trump does more and better propaganda than Fox News does, thereby making this category in my mind, a no-brainer. I think Donald Trump is the Michael Jordan of jerks. Yes. It's too cute by half to give the MVP to Steve Nash or Carl Malone. No, it's Michael Jordan every year. For me, it's Donald Trump every year. So Trump in this category. John? Yeah, for me, like the Lincoln Project, I don't like, but they're not going to be like the

jerk of the year or whatever. Fox News, I feel like how we kind of covered it. And I agree a lot, a lot with what you said about the relationship there. I mean, the thing about Fox News is they're awful, but they also, look, they influence Trump, but they also are very influenced by Trump. And I fully believe that if the pandemic had hit and Trump had been like, I'm gonna prove that I'm the protector of America, I'm gonna destroy this thing. We're gonna do it, we're gonna do lockdowns, we're gonna do masks, we're gonna be protected. I think Fox News would have lined up behind him 100%. And they would have been telling everyone it's the Patriot thing to wear masks and all of that. And so I think that while they did influence him in some ways

with hydroxychloricone and everything, I feel like this year he made Fox worse. It's hard to not choose COVID-19 because it's killed a lot of people, not just in America, but around the world. I've lost people in my family. I'm sure everyone watching knows somebody. But like you guys said, Trump also made that much worse, at least in America. And so while it seems cheap to choose Trump, how can you not in 2020? And not just for the COVID, which is by far the best reason to, but the attempt to overthrow democracy, making the entire future of whether we have a democracy all about his ego effectively, the fact that we started off the year with him being impeached and him almost taking us to war with Iran. And then let's also not forget that in a year of the

biggest social movement of our lifetimes, he has antagonized those groups who are asking for justice every step of the way. He has been wrong on everything, more than anyone else this year. And so in this category, I gotta give it to Trump. No, that's why we're all so dispirited because there's 74 million Americans who think, from our point of view, the single most despicable man we have ever seen in our lifetimes, is their unquestioned leader, that they look to him for guidance and they believe him more than everyone else combined. That guy, like, and how despicable he is for them is not the bug, it's the feature. So there's 74 million of us walk around America thinking, I love how Donald

Trump is. And that's just, it's impossible not to get depressed about that. Yeah, it's pretty convincing. Yeah, go ahead. Point, Jake, though, they think what they want to think, and he gives them permission to do it. Because even when he departs from, you know, when he said coronavirus is real and he did wear a mask, those people are still out there fighting the masks and saying that he gave them permission to believe whatever they wanted to believe because nothing that he does is rooted in facts or truth. And he enables their ability to be reckless without any type of consequence or information to back up whatever they're saying. So I just, ugh.

Yeah. It's pretty confirmed because we each have three, four different reasons, but it all came back to him. He's got multiple reasons for multiple sources to have the same conclusion. Yeah. All right, John, who won? And in this case, the people agree with us. Trump did win, winner of the bracket. and second biggest jerk of the year.

And I would say he's been, I think he's been the number one jerk in at least one other year. I think, is it controversial to say this was his worst year? Like this was him at his most jerkiest? No, I don't think that's that controversy because this is the year he tried to kill democracy. And Americans. And everybody. Yeah. So, I mean, of all the horrible, horrible things he's done, he easily outdid himself this year.

All right, so the last bracket is another doozy, Rudy Giuliani, Scott Atlas, Bill Barr, Mitch McConnell. Oh, wow, that's a lot of jerks. Why don't we all get nauseated at the same? Yeah, yeah. You know what's funny is in the right wing world. If they did something like this, they'd be like in this bracket, Bernie Sanders trying to help everybody. Yeah. You know, and then AOC trying to help everybody. And you know, and then Nina Turner trying to get people higher wages and health care, despicable. And here comes, here comes Cory Bush talking about representing her constituents.

And they don't want to even, they don't even want to end democracy. I can't believe it. Anyway, all right, Ida. You know, Jesus, all right, we got hurry up. So Rudy Giuliani is gross, disgusting, despicable. He's melting and he's oozing. So he's gross. I think his punishment is already coming. I'm going to say Mitch McConnell because this is the thing about Mitch McConnell.

I just think people, I remember somebody saying he's just. This is Senator from Alabama, like how much, what are you talking about? And I was like, do you understand how many things he's responsible for that? You don't even know what's going. We're watching all of everybody else run around in front of the cameras. Rudy Giuliani is a clown, right? But Mitch McConnell is responsible for the acts. And I'm going to hold marshmallow Mitch to the fire. And I'm going to say him. Yes, actually, I agree as well. And the thing is, Mitch McConnell, he stated, he told us why he should be a jerk of the year. He's been standing for years. He's been saying it before Trump came in. When Obama was in office, he was talking about how he's laying the groundwork to make sure

his legacy is cemented for years to come, far after he's gone, dead and gone, and far after his term is done, after Trump is gone, after all these guys are gone, his influence on our way of life and the way that we, the way judges, let's put it this way, our federal judges, up to the Supreme Court, he made sure to appoint as many as possible once Trump was in office, and also before Trump was in office, made sure to block as many as possible from President Obama. The idea is to make, he's like, yeah, we can have policy, sure tax cuts that helps us for, you know, 15, 20 years, then we got to read up again, or five years, read it up again and do it more. With judges, we can change people's ability to live and have rights in the country that they live in.

We're going to limit rights. And even if people start changing it and get me out of office, my desire to make sure that you don't have rights lives on. He's making sure that his legacy, his negative legacy stands. That's just, that's bigger than anything else. Yeah, Mitch McConnell. Why? Because he's boss hog. Yes.

Yeah. So he is the boss. I mean, look at what happened today. He said the election is over and now it's over. So it wasn't Trump who decided. Trump's still screaming from the rooftops. I won. Bobby, I won. And Mitch McConnell came out and said Biden's the president elect. And then he, this is an important part. We actually didn't get to it on the show today. He then called all the Republican senators and said no one is allowed to object. Because if you object, we're going to have to go on the record as opposed. Trump and we don't want that. It's a no win situation for us. So when the electoral college results come here and we have to certify it on January 6th, no Republican senators will object. And so far they have all bowed their heads. So Trump doesn't actually run the Republican Party, Mitch McConnell does.

And Trump is a con man for his own personal benefit. But Mitch McConnell is like a dark lord servant of the donor class that controls us all. So McConnell easily. I met Kentucky, not Alabama, before the TYT people start tweeting me. Relax. Oh, it's too late. I know. It's like if we misspelled jerks. Okay, go ahead, John.

Yeah, I mean, look, they're all just terrible. I mean, Rudy Giuliani making a mockery of our elections and himself. But he was good in the Borat movie, so I got to give him some points for that. Yeah. Bill Barr, it's terrible, but this wasn't his worst year. I mean, you know, he had an effect on the impeachment and everything. He's a terrible guy. But no, he's not going to win. I know some people watching this might think that I'm a choose Scott Atlas because I have literally talked about herd immunity more on my show this year than literally anyone in the world. But the thing is, Scott Atlas didn't convince Trump to pursue

that he was brought in because Trump was already pursuing that. I don't think Scott Atlas convinced Trump of anything. It's got to be Mitch McConnell. And not just for his action. this year, but for the deep sinking feeling in my gut that I have about what he's going to do if the Republicans control the Senate going forward. And also, even in recent news, like the blocking of the COVID aid and the pushing for the corporate immunity. And then also just the countless months of blocking the aid when people's lives are being ruined and being taken. Yeah, no, It's he's a gigantic jerk. There's no other way to put it. Yeah, so now let me summarize. Oh, by the way, sorry, I'll jump in here for John.

You guys also voted for Mitch McConnell. So for unanimous on this one too. So the five jerks of the year that were finalists then through your picks was anti-maskers, Tucker Carlson, Trump voters, Trump, and Mitch McConnell. And as John was alluding to throughout the show, the person who got the most votes, out of all of them was Mitch McConnell, the jerk of the year. So we got to really hand it to Mitch McConnell. Yeah.

In Trump's worst year to still beat him for jerk of the year, that's Hall of Fame stuff. Although I'm going to have to, I wonder if there should be. asteris because I wonder if it's Trump had more competition in his block. He was literally going up against a virus that's killed far more than a million people around the world. I love the audience, I will bow to them. Mitch McConnell is the jerk of the year, but I feel like Trump did a lot of work this year to earn it more than ever before, but he's the jerk. Yeah, well look, real quick, I'm curious what you all would have voted for for overall bracket, even though we've announced the winner, I would have voted for Trump too.

Mitch McConnell is the heart of darkness. I'm happy to vote for him in non-Trump years, but Trump has been a shark NATO of damage to this country. And so I don't know that any person in my lifetime has done more damage to America and Americans than Donald Trump did this year. So I would have voted for him for Jerk of the year. Yeah, he's a jerk of the year. Mitch McConnell can be the jerk of the decade. And he's been wreaking havoc since Obama. I mean, that, you know, and before. But I think I think Donald Trump, just look at America right now. And from a global perspective, I traveled outside of the country. My cab driver in Canada laughed at me and said, look who your president is. I was in Montreal. I mean, if you look at the country, people say, oh, it's been bad. But if you look at socially what he's done, like you look at the way people are interacting with each other and as a result of all of the things that he has continuously kept just feeding in this country. It's it's embarrassing where we are. The guy, we are the movie idiocracy. The reality start came and ruined. And in the country is in ruins. Yeah, absolutely. J.R. out of curiosity, who would you vote for? I would have to talk about it. I was talking about.

Mr. McConnell. And maybe, maybe not for the year, but because I'm thinking his entire existence and what he's been doing to the country and how it's going to last for a very long time. JR, the man of the people. All right, when we come back, we're going to do Turg of the year. And if you're thinking, oh, that's got to be easier. No, all of those are super hard brackets too. And Ben Dixon is going to join us. So stay right here. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.